Columbia officials push to replace parking meters, outdated ticketing system

By Columbia Spy -
Columbia Borough officials want to replace coin-operated parking meters and aging citation system. 

JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY 

Borough officials said at a budget workshop Wednesday that they want to move ahead with long-delayed plans to replace the borough's coin-operated parking meters and its aging citation system. The changes have been discussed for roughly two years.

Zink: "When are we going to rip the band-aid off?"

The topic came up during review of the police budget at the October 21 workshop, when Heather Zink, council vice president, asked about a line item and said, "When are we going to rip the band-aid off?" The borough has been paying monthly to maintain the current system while a plan to phase it out has stalled.

The new system would eliminate the meters entirely, replacing them with electronic payment. Several problems with the current setup were cited:

Coin handling: The borough has about 21 bags of quarters on hand, and officials said they need to contact the borough's new bank about depositing them. Police Sergeant Brent Keyser said there is "literally one key" shared between parking enforcement and the maintenance worker to access the meters.

Outdated software: The borough uses Visual Alert, a program from Central Square that Keyser said has been "end of life for years" and is no longer supported.

Manual citations: Staff must run license plates by hand, and unpaid tickets convert into citations after a set number of days. The citations are printed on dot-matrix printers, which are increasingly hard to find, in a five-part form. When the state raises fees each year, the printed forms are outdated, and someone must correct them by hand. An officer then signs each citation and walks it to the judge's office. Keyser said the judge has been unhappy with how the citations look.

Inconsistent grace periods: Tickets are meant to convert after seven days, but staff sometimes accept payment after 10 or 12. An automated system would treat everyone the same.

How the new system would work
Keyser said he had spoken with Gettysburg, one of hundreds of Pennsylvania agencies using such a system. Parking enforcement staff walk the streets with a handheld device and a receipt printer, and the data flows back into the records system. Most payments would be made online, which would reduce front-desk work.

Council discussed the fees charged by payment apps such as ParkMobile. Zink said a fee of about $2 on a $15 ticket would be paid by the consumer, with the company sending the borough a monthly check for what it collects. Keyser added that customer service on such services "has not been the greatest."

Delays and next steps
The project has repeatedly slipped through the cracks during management turnover and competing priorities. Councilman Ethan Byers said, "We just need an actionable plan to actually get this done." The meters in parking lots would come out first, followed by side streets, and that kiosks had already been ruled out, with the biggest hurdle being new signage.

Keyser: "I think it's a worthwhile project."

"I think it's a worthwhile project," Keyser said but noted that council must pass the budget first. Byers urged the borough to start "in the first couple months of next year" so the project doesn't fall through the cracks during the manager transition. Software for the system, described as a roughly $30,000 purchase, is part of the capital budget, which earlier in the meeting included a parking software subscription.

Council plans to continue budget talks Nov. 5.


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